While language plays a part in the loss of culture-- i think the immigrant experience is so overwhelming, that language is only one part of it.
Both my parents are immigrants, and both grew up in an english speaking culture--but Irish culture is not the same as English. and there was a good deal of culture lost. Partly, there exist an "irish-American" culture that has aspects of irish culture, but is not the same. Irish-Americans were "surprised" that my parent didn't "know irish songs"-- Of course they did know irish songs-- but not irish american songs.. "Danny Boy" is typical-- it this country it is considered an "irish" song-- but in Ireland, it is an "irish-American" song. there are many Irish Amercan songs that are unknown in ireland-- Tura-lura-lura, the irish lulabye is a good example.
I learned irish culture- and i learned, from second cousins (who had been in this country 60 years before my parents came--both side of the family!), and other irish amercans--irish american culture. But i fought learning real irish culture till i was an adult-- I wanted to "fit in" and be "normal".
My parents too, didn't presure us-- they wanted us to grow up and be American-- Ireland was their past, but America was my future. So even though we shared a language-- i learned most of what i know about irish culture as an adult. I was helped by having first cousins and Aunt and Uncles still alive in ireland, and by having visited ireland--both as a child, and as adult. But i also made a point of reading and learning about irish common law-- a very different concept of law than English common law-- but echo's of it could be found in my parents "solutions" to inequities.
My family is rich in culture-- my mothers fathers family can be traced back 500 years in the city of Dublin-- and all of it has been documented in a two volume series-- This same grandfather was a top sargent under Michael Collins, in the Irish Free State Army--my mother was born in the army barracks of Dublin Castle! But these things where not talked about when i was a child--it was only when the movie was made about Michael Collins, that my mother mentioned, that as top sargent, it fell to my grandfather, (a the leader had a public ceremony) to get the keys from the British Sargent at Arms, and to unlock all the doors of Dublin Castle, and secure the site. If the movie hadn't been made, i wonder if i would have every learned that! Not that all my relatives where so noble-- when asked what part he played in the Easter uprising-- one uncle replied--"Part? You know the bloody english where using live ammo? I stayed the hell away!"--but that too it part of my culture--the recognision that most of the irish didn't get involved in the uprising-- they wanted the English out, but not at the cost of their lives!.
It falls to the children of immigrants to work to keep their parents culture.. Its infinately harder, when you have also lost your parents language-- but English is not the the reason for culture loss-- it is a much broader problem, of which language is one of the most evident markers.
